


Not Dying, Just Pregnant

by Katybug1992



Series: Unexpectedly Bonded [2]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: AU: Everyone still in Carolina, Alpha Jeff, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Mpreg, Omega Jared, Protective brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 19:17:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21361345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katybug1992/pseuds/Katybug1992
Summary: Jared gets pregnant sooner than he and Jeff expected.
Relationships: Jeff Skinner/Jared Staal
Series: Unexpectedly Bonded [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539955
Comments: 2
Kudos: 67





	Not Dying, Just Pregnant

Jeff woke to the melodious sounds of his mate puking in their bathroom, a sound he had become very familiar with. Sighing, he got up and stumbled to the en suite, leaning against the doorframe and watching as Jared knelt, head resting on the toilet as he waited for the second wave.

“Level?” Jeff mumbled, concerned eyes focused on the red head.

“Seven.” Jared mumble before leaning back over the toilet and puking again.

“What can I do?”

“Let me puke in peace.”

Jeff chuckled softly but did as Jared asked, heading back into the bedroom and busying himself with making the bed.

“I’m telling Eric and Marc today.” Jared mumbled, stumbling out of the bathroom after making sure he wasn’t going to puke anymore and brushing his teeth.

“What about Jordan?” Jeff grinned as Jared draped himself over his back.

“I think you should tell him.” Jared grinned into Jeff’s neck.

“Why me?!”

“Because you chickened out of telling Eric that you bonded me.”

“Then maybe I should tell Eric.”

“He would throw a fit if it wasn’t me who told him.”

“Why don’t we tell him and Jordan together?”

“Because I don’t want to be in the room when Jordan finds out.”

“But you want me to be?”

“He won’t kill you.”

“Kill? No. Maim? Definitely.”

“Oh, Alpha up.”

“I’ll show you ‘Alpha up’.” Jeff growled and grabbed Jared, pushing him down onto the bed and kissing him harshly, grinning as Jared moaned and rolled his hips up.

“You reak.” Jordan glared at him as the couple walked into Eric’s house. 

Jeff had no idea how he forgot that it was Family Day. Every Sunday they were off and in town, was Family Day, where Jared (and by extension Jeff) and Jordan were expected at Eric’s. Well, he knew exactly how he forgot and he shot a glare at Jared, who ushered him to couch and eased him down next to Jordan as he wandered off to find Eric.

Jeff gave Jordan a fake grin, which resulted in the older man raising his eyebrows, “Something you need to tell me?”

Jeff let out a nervous laugh and looked down at the arm of the couch.

After leaving Jeff to Jordan, Jared wandered to the backyard where Eric was playing soccer with Parker.

“Got a sec?” Jared greeted, earning a grin from his brother and a knowing look from Tanya, who was ushering Parker inside.

“What’s up?” Eric asked, pulling Jared to one of the chairs and pushing him into it, “You okay? Marc said you haven’t been feeling well.”

“Marc has a big mouth.” Jared playfully rolled his eyes, “I’m actively making the choice to tell you this first and I want you to remember that the next time I tell Marc something first. Because this is a little more important than any of that.”

“Should I be worried?” Eric’s eyes filled with concern and Jared quickly shook his head.

“It’s nothing bad. It’s good. Like, really good.” Jared couldn’t help the grin that was spreading across his face.

“Jared.”

“You’re going to be an uncle.”

Jared’s grin grew as Eric’s face lit up little-by-little as he processed the information. He pulled his little brother out of the chair and hugged him tightly, laughing brightly as Jared smooshed his face into his older brother’s neck.

“Thanks for telling me first, kid.” Eric’s voice was soft as Jared stepped away, “How far along?”

“About two months but we only found out a couple weeks ago.”

“You kept this from me for two weeks?”

“Jeff and I wanted to keep it to ourselves a little. Also Jeff knew that as soon as you guys knew, you would join him in hovering and he wanted to annoy me with it by himself for a bit.”

“Smart man.”

“You wanna call Marc with me?”

“Sure.” Eric laughed, “Where’s Jeff?”

“I left him to tell Jordan since he chickened out on telling you about us bonding.”

Eric let out a loud laugh as Jared pulled out his phone.

Marc answered halfway through the second ring, demanding, “You’re not dying, right, kid? You better not be dying.”

“Not dying,” Jared rolled his eyes as Marc told him not to roll his eyes, “just pregnant.”

“You’re - I mean, I figured it was only a matter of time, but I didn’t think it would be this soon.”

“Us, either. My doctor said it would probably take six months or so for my heats to regulate, so we figured we had six months before we had to worry about the possibility.”

“You excited?”

“Yeah! We both are.”

“You gonna move out of that apartment and into a house?”

“We’ve talked about it.”

“I’m sure Eric will work on convincing you throughout the day.”

“It would be smarter to move before you’re super pregnant and definitely before the baby comes.” Eric grinned after they got off the phone, “In fact, there are a couple houses for sale down the street. I’m sure you saw them.”

“Down the street?” Jared scoffed, “One is across the street and the other is next door.”

“Are you saying that you don’t want to live next door to your big brother?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Eric was prevented from responded when Jeff tore out of the back door and over to Jared, ducking down on the side of the chair as Jordan ran outside.

“I take it you told him?” Jared asked calmly, running a hand through Jeff’s hair and trying to contain a smile. When Jeff nodded, he asked, “How’d it go?”

“Shut up.” Jeff glared.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” Jordan demanded, hard eyes focused on his brother, “Because I know you wanted to wait a couple years.”

“Jordy,” Jared stood up and walked over to his brother, “I’m very okay with this.”

Jordan took a minute to assess Jared before he relaxed and hugged him, “Congrats, kid.”

“So, you’re happy for us?”

“Of course. Although it might be a good idea for Jeff to stay away from me for a couple hours.”

Jared just laughed as Jeff let out a whine.

At one point in the evening, the two closed themselves in a room and contacted their parents, Jeff asking his parents to pass the news on to his siblings, and got over the top reactions, both sets of grandparents very happy and full of questions, which Jared graciously answered while Jeff stared at him in awe.

“You’re incredible.” Jeff’s voice soft as they hung up.

“What?” Jared laughed, turning to look at his mate.

“Nothing.” Jeff blushed, brushing his lips against Jared’s, pulling away when Jared went to take it further, “Come on, we should get back before Eric thinks we really snuck off for a quickie.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Jared smirked, presenting his neck and putting his mark on clear display.

Jeff let out a growl but was prevented from further action by Parker running down the hallway. Jared shoved him away and stood up, plunging his phone into his pocket just in time to catch his nephew.

“Gotta starting being a little more careful, okay, bud?” Jared asked gently, pushing Parker’s hair from his face as he carried him out of the room, leaving Jeff to cool himself down.

“You’re gonna have a baby?!” Parker’s face lit up as he looked at favorite uncle, “Mama said you were.”

“Yeah,” Jared grinned at the child in his arms, “you’re gonna be a big cousin.”

“I’m gonna teach him everything I know,” Parker replied, as sagely as a child could.

“We don’t know if the baby’s a boy yet. It could be a girl.”

“It’ll be a boy.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because Staals are always boys.”

Jared huffed out a laugh, rolling his eyes at how Eric and Jordan were leaning on each other in an effort not to laugh.

“We’ll see.” Jared finally replied, “After all, Jeff has a lot of sisters and the baby is also a Skinner.”

“It’ll be a boy.” Parker shrugged, patting Jared’s stomach and walking over to his dad.

Jared huffed out a laugh before plopping down onto the couch, smiling over at Tanya.

“How are you feeling?” Tanya asked.

“As good as expected.” Jared shrugged, “Throwing up every morning, but luckily that usually stops by 9.”

“You’re lucky,” Tanya laughed, “Parker had me throwing up all day when I was pregnant with him.”

“I’m hoping it’ll stay this way, but I think it’ll get worse.”

“Wise for one so young!”

Jared laughed, leaning back and relaxing fully into the couch, absently thinking it might be a bad thing that Eric seemed to have huddled up with Jeff, with Jordan standing close by looking far too amused.

“Do you know what they’re talking about?” Jared asked Tanya, tone quiet and gaze focused on his brothers and mate.

“Probably the houses for sale down the street.” Tanya shrugged, smile far too mischievous.

“We’re going to end up moving in across the street, aren’t we?” 

“Welcome to the neighborhood.”

Jared was prevented from getting up to break up the powwow by Parker bounding over and jumping into his lap, begging him to play.

The night progressed relatively normally, with some added hovering. As Jared and Jeff left, Jeff made a point of saying that it wouldn’t hurt to move closer to family and that Eric had made a pretty good point about moving before Jared was too far along. Jared gave him an unimpressed look, but glanced at the large house with the For Sale sign in front of it and sighed. 

“Grab a damn flyer.” he mumbled, getting into Jeff’s car, starting the process of getting himself used to the idea of moving across the street from his brother, “Jordan better not buy the other house.”

Jeff laughed and jogged over to the box next to the sign, pulling out one of the glossy flyers before joining his pouting mate.

Jared looked over the handout as Jeff drove, hating that he really liked what he saw. Sighing, he looked over at Jeff, “We’re really moving across the street from Eric…”

“Seems like it.”

“I blame you.” 

Jeff laughed brightly in response.

“I can’t believe we’re moving in across the street from Eric…” Jared muttered as his brothers and mate helped to unload the truck. He had been roundly forbidden from helping, not even Marc took his side.

“I’ll try to keep him in line,” Tanya replied, walking over and handing him a sandwich, “Eat something.”

Jared pentuently ate the sandwich while Tanya kept him company, occasionally throwing out unhelpful suggestions.

“It really is a nice house.” 

“I know. Otherwise we would still be in our apartment on the other side of town.”

Tanya just laughed. 

Once unloading was done, Eric all but instructed everyone to come over to his for lunch. As they headed across the street, Jared grabbed Jeff and pulled him inside. Closing the door, he pulled his mate into a kiss.

“What was that for?” Jeff asked, breathing heavy as he pulled away.

“Haven’t seen you since this morning.” Jared shrugged, not looking at Jeff.

Jeff laughed and pulled Jared closer to him, slipping his hands into the back pockets of Jared’s jeans, “We’re homeowners.”

“We are.”

“With a pup on the way.”

“You’re gonna get sappy on me, aren’t you?”

“I adore you.”

“Yes, you are gonna get sappy.”

“I’m so lucky you’re mine.”

“Jeff -”

“I’ve had a crush on you for as long as I’ve known you.”

“Skinner, I swear -”

“You’re so -”

Before Jeff could say anything sappier, Jared grabbed the back of his head and kissed him again, all thoughts of talking quickly leaving Jeff’s head. 

Pulling back, Jared smirked at Jeff’s dazed expression and said, “We should get over to Eric’s before he comes back here.”

“Yeah,” Jeff replied, blinking rapidly in an attempt to clear his head.

Jared shook his head, trying to prevent the affectionate smile on his face from spreading, before taking Jeff’s hand and leading them outside and across the street.

They were having a boy. Tanya had insisted on a Gender Reveal party and Jared insisted that he definitely did not tear up when the blue smoke billowed out of the targets he and Jeff had shot the pucks at. He laughed as his brothers and Parker collected their various winnings and tucked his face into Jeff’s neck as his Alpha joined him.

“You okay?” Jeff tried not to sound worried, but he still wasn’t used to seeing his mate’s emotions seemingly on a hair-trigger, anything having the possibility of setting him off.

“Yeah,” Jared looked up, schooling his features and wiping his eyes as he rolled them, “I just can’t believe Eric got Parker into gambling. Shameful.”

“We’re having a boy.” Jeff grinned, smile widening when he saw his usually controlled mate start to tear up again.

“Parker called it.” Jared wiped at his eyes again, “Staal’s have boys.”

Jeff laughed loudly, “Baby’s half Skinner.”

“Maybe he should have that name…”

“Are you saying…?”

“I want our son to have your name, yes.”

“And his father?”

“Maybe.” Jared shrugged and looked at the ground, “Been thinking about it.”

Jeff just grinned in response, pressing a kiss to Jared’s temple. Glancing up, he saw Marc approaching and backed away, leaving Jared to his brother and joining a couple of his teammates.

“Hey, kid,” Marc greeted.

“Not a kid.” Jared mumbled in response, rolling his eyes.

“Debatable.”

Jared laughed but let Marc pull him into a hug, “Thank you for coming down for this.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” Marc responded, “Someone has to keep you from going crazy.”

“Tanya’s been helpful.”

“And Jeff?”

“Still not able to tell Eric and Jordy ‘no’, but he tries.”

Marc laughed at the look on Jared’s face, “I meant ‘how’s Jeff dealing with being a dad?’”

“He’s great. He’s so excited. He insisted on doing the nursery and I’m not allowed to see it until it’s done.”

“And how are you doing?” 

Jared opened his mouth to respond, but shut it when he saw the look his brother gave him. Thinking it over, he replied, “I’m okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Mom says it’s normal to be a little scared with your first pup. I don’t even know why I’m scared. My doctor says everything’s fine. Mom says that Jeff is the most attentive Alpha she’s ever seen. Eric and Jordan are helpful in their own ways.”

“I’m just a phone call away, you know that, right?” Marc’s tone left no room for argument, “You need me, I’m on that next plane out.”

“I would never ask you to do that.” 

That tone never worked on Jared anyway.

“You never have to ask. Just say the word.”

Jared didn’t respond, looking away from his older brother as he tried to blink his vision clear, muttering “damn hormones” as Marc chuckled and pulled him into a hug.

Eric contacted Marc the minute the first contraction hit and Marc on a plane by the time Eric was driving Jeff and Jared to the hospital, Jordan meeting them there. It had taken a lot of convincing on Jared’s part to get Parker to agree to stay home with his mom until after the baby was born, the young boy not wanting to leave his uncle’s side while he was in pain.

And since Jared got settled in his room, Eric and Jordan had been at each other’s necks, their worry about their little brother manifesting in aggression toward each other. Jeff was no help, caught up in his own mixture of worry and excitement.

“Enough!” Jared finally snapped after gritting through a particularly painful contraction, “If you’re going to keep bickering, you can leave. Don’t touch me.”

Jeff quickly snatched his hand back as his mate glared at his brothers.

“Sorry.” the two older men were quick to respond, Eric moving to stand next to Jared, running a hand through his hair, Jordan going to his other side and putting a hand on his shoulder.

“How are you doing?” Jordan asked, letting Jared squeeze his hand as another contraction hit, turning face away and mouthing a string of adult language that Eric definitely would have scolded him for.

He got a glare in response, wincing out a sorry as Jared squeezed his hand again for the heck of it.

“Careful with him.” Eric chuckled, “The team needs him, kinda like how you need a haircut.”

“So not at all?” Jared grinned cheekily at Eric.

“Ha. Ha. HA!” Jordan deadpanned, but yelped as another contraction hit Jared, causing him to to grip his brother’s hand again.

“Okay!” The doctor greeted cheerily, earning a glare from the youngest Staal brothers, the older of which still had his hand trapped in the younger’s grip, “Let’s get you checked out.”

Jeff managed to get back to his mate’s side, relieving Jordan as the doctor declared Jared ready to go, pleasantly surprised by how quickly Jared had progressed.

“Jordy and I will go wait for Marc.” Eric’s voice was low as he felt Jared’s nerves kick up, “He should be here soon.”

“Wait.” Jared’s hand shot out, grabbing Eric, “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can.” 

“No, I can’t.”

“Jay, you got this.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I have seen you get through some tough shit. And because I have never lied to you. Not when it counted. You. Have. This.”

Jared didn’t say anything, just nodded as his brothers left the room and the nurses prepared to move him to the delivery room.

“Anything?!” Marc demanded as he walked over to his brothers.

“I thought it would take you longer than that to get here from the airport.” Jordan grumbled, handing over the twenty bucks he now had to pay Eric.

“Rented a car. Broke many driving laws.” Marc responded, “Heard anything?”

“Not yet.” Eric replied, his bouncing knee the only indication of his nerves.

“Gotta be soon, though, right?”

“I hope so.”

The three Staals looked up as Jeff entered, wide smile in place, and pushed past him, racing to their little brother’s room. Eric stopped short in the doorway, causing his brothers to run into him. 

Sitting on the bed, exhausted, holding the little bundle wrapped in a Hurricanes blanket, was his baby brother, smiling down at his son. The three other Staals slowly made their way into the room. 

“Told you so.” Eric muttered fondly, scenting Jared and looking down at the baby who already looked like a Staal.

“Meet Colton Bradley Skinner.” Jared smiled as his brothers gathered around the bed.

“Skinner?” Jordan raised an eyebrow.

“I figured he should share a last name with his parents.” Jared responded like it wasn’t news to everyone in the room.

“Really?” Jeff breathed out, finally managing to shoulder his way to his mate’s side, “You’re sure?”

“You were amazing in there.” Jared looked up at Jeff, eyes shining, “You’ve been amazing this entire time.”

“God, I love you.” Jeff’s voice was filled with awe.

“Can I hold him?” Eric asked tentatively, eyes focused on the baby.

“Yeah,” Jared allowed his brother to take Colton, careful gaze focused on him, smiling gently as Eric lit up as he took in every detail of his nephew’s face.

“You can sleep,” Jeff whispered, perching himself on the bed, half behind his mate to try to calm his instincts, as Jared struggled to keep his eyes open as his head fell against Jeff’s shoulder, “I’m here. But, more importantly, your brothers are here. And I pity the person who tries to harm you or your baby with them here. I wouldn’t even get a piece of them.”

“E,” Jared’s voice was soft as the exhaustion of the day caught up with him, “I want you to be his godfather.”

“We both do.” Jeff ran a hand through Jared’s hair, smiling as the Omega fully relaxed against him and tucked his face into Jeff’s neck.

Eric sniffed, allowing Marc to take the pup, and nodded, blinking furiously, “Of course.”

“Don’t you start.” Jared groaned.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Eric replied, wiping his eyes. 

He moved over to Jared other side, pushing his little brother’s hair out of his face and looking him in the eye, “I am so proud of you, kid.”

“Not a kid.” Jared mumbled, breathing evening out as he finally let his exhaustion win.

“You’ll always be to me.” Eric whispered, brushing his lips over Jared’s forehead.

“Go fawn over your nephew.” Jeff prompted, “I have him.”

“I know you do.” Eric responded, smiling at Jeff and ruffling his hair, “Congratulations, dad.”

Jeff beamed in response before looking back down at Jared, nuzzling his mate and feeling happier than he could ever recall feeling.

“Thank you.” he whispered down at Jared, his own eyes falling shut.


End file.
